Mobile Gaming Conference 2006: Mauj’s Mobile Games

Tech2 reports on Mobile Gaming Conference 2006, held in Mumbai last week: Mauj Telecoms mobile game lineup in detail, including “Augmented Reality games” and multiplayer bluetooth gaming. Mauj plans to introduce memory sticks loaded with 50 mobile games for the Indian market. Ashay Padwal, head of technology at Mauj put the onus of growth of the sector on handset manufacturers. Mauj expects that in a few months 40% of mobile handsets will be gaming enabled. Padwal also mentioned DRM 2, expected to come into effect in the first quarter of 2007, which will allow sharing of games via bluetooth, but require a payment of Rs.20 for enabling gameplay. More details here.

At Rs.50-250 for a game download, what exactly am I getting? An Augmented Reality game that “requires the user to capture a particular colour, to gain points in the game”, or “uses pictures from the phone’s folders, as a backdrop during gameplay”? Ah, yes. My kind of entertainment.
Have we seen any compelling content in mobile gaming from the Indian companies? Something that people are buying because the game itself is good, and not necessarily attached to a Bollywood movie or personality? The memory stick idea seems to be a way to bypass the grey market, but then you really can’t compete with them if they have better games. Most of what I’ve seen from the Indian co’s is just based on a set of standardized templates, with different graphics…

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